Germany registers 577,000 asylum seekers from Jan-Sept

German authorities said Wednesday they had registered around 577,000 asylum seekers in the first nine months of this year, a third of whom claim to be from Syria. The Interior Ministry said however that the figure could be subject to errors, given that some migrants would not follow through with their applications while others may have given incorrect information. Nevertheless, the number was more than twice the total arrivals of 200,000 for 2014, with Europe's top economy expecting to receive as many as one million asylum seekers this year. For the month of September alone, authorities recorded 163,772 asylum seekers, including 85,455 from Syria, 19,192 from Iraq and 18,387 from Afghanistan. The sudden surge in new arrivals has left local authorities scrambling to cope, and sparked discord within Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition. Merkel's allies, the conservative CSU party governing Bavaria, have been particularly vocal in criticising the chancellor's open door policy to Syrians, warning that resources are overstretched.